Our volunteers work hard all year on behalf of
unwanted Siberian Huskies. All year they balance the needs of their work, their
families and their own dogs with the constant pressure of rescue work. Because
of this, each year at Christmas time we close down for a month in order to give
our volunteers the opportunity to concentrate on their own lives for the
Yuletide period. This year's closedown will start on 8th December 2018 and
end on 7th January 2019. During this period we will only deal with genuine
emergency situations. Other than genuine emergencies, we will not take in any
dogs, nor will we rehome any for the period of the closedown.

Thank you for your understanding - and please allow us to wish you a Great
Christmas and a wonderful New Year xxxx

My
wife Terry and I have been showing, racing, loving, rescuing and rehoming
Siberian Huskies for almost 25 years. The last 11 of these, with the organisation
we founded, SHWA(UK). One of the most disturbing aspects of those 20+ years has
been the rapid decline in breeding ethics amongst those seeking to produce
puppies for sale. There have always been a few large scale puppy farmers and a
larger number of ‘backyard breeders’ whose motivation for breeding has been
purely financial. Over the past 20 years however, we have seen a huge increase
in the category which now produces the vast majority of Siberian Husky puppies
in the UK – the naïve/stupid/greedy “pet” breeders.
These “breeders” can be simply naïve – “My dogs are so beautiful I
thought they would make lovely puppies;”
or stupid – “I read that it is best to let all lady dogs have a litter; ”
or greedy – “Wow! I can get £500 each for pups – let’s find the nearest
male for my bitch to mate with.”
As often as not these people are naïve, stupid and greedy!
Of course there is another type of breeder – the responsible, ethical breeder,
but as their pups rarely, if ever, come into rescue and tend to produce only
healthy, well tempered dogs, they need not concern us here (to see what
characterises a good, ethical, responsible breeder, check out this article

The
characteristics of a “Pet” Breeder include the following:

They have no knowledge of what constitutes a good quality Siberian Husky. They
have never shown their dogs under knowledgeable judges, nor ever worked them in
harness to see whether they still retain the capacity for sled dog work. Not
only that, but they don’t actually care whether their dogs are good examples
of the breed – they are ‘cute’ and will make them lots of money and that,
in the end is what counts for these "breeders".

They have no knowledge of(or interest in) the health issues which may be prevalent in the
breed and carry out no breed specific health tests before breeding. Siberians
are (or were before the “pet” breeders got hold of the breed) a pretty
healthy lot, but any dogs being considered for breeding should at the very least
be tested for both Primary Glaucoma and Hereditary Cataracts. Other conditions
for which testing is recommended are PRA (Progressive Retinal Atrophy), PPM
(Persistent Pupillary Membrane) and CD (Corneal Dystrophy). It is not enough to
just test the prospective parents – the dog’s ancestors should also be
researched. A friend of ours once had a puppy from parents with excellent clear
eye tests, but what they didn’t know was that the great grandfather of the
bitch had failed its eye test for glaucoma but was bred from anyway. This
failure came back to haunt our friend when their young dog had to have an eye
removed at 18 months.
Hip Dysplacia is not a major problem within the breed (in our first 15 years in
the breed, we had not come across a Sibe with HD but over the past five years we
have seen more and more), and the way this situation can be maintained and
improved is by every breeder hip-scoring his/her dogs under the BVA scheme. The
current breed average hip score is 7. Dogs whose hip scores are in double
figures, should not, in our opinion, be bred from.

They have
no financial resources (and or no inclination) to pay for any emergencies which may occur
– for example, the two ‘rescue’ litters we are currently rearing (see
below) have so far cost us almost £7000 for veterinary fees and specialist
equipment/food.

They
do not have sufficient experience to even know when an emergency is
occurring – both the ‘mums’ we are currently looking after came close to
death due to malnutrition and massive infections – we were able to recognize
the symptoms and deal with them urgently – less experienced owners may not
have done.

They
tend to be profoundly blind to their own shortcomings and motivations
– “I’m not one of those backyard breeders, I care about my dogs” they
cry – but not enough to study the breed, to carry out the essential health
tests or to realize that they are not competent midwives for their poor trusting
bitch.

Why
am I ranting? Simply because I am deeply, passionately and totally angry at
the situation in which some of these poor dogs find themselves due to
irresponsible, stupid so-called breeders……

Three years ago,
SHWA(UK) took on two undersized, underweight female puppies – barely a year
old. The fosterers did not know that they were also pregnant (in human terms it
is the equivalent of a 7 yr old child being pregnant). These poor girls were
neither physically nor emotionally ready to be mothers. After scans had
confirmed the late stage of the pregnancies, Terry and I were asked to look
after them while they had their litters. Both girls were significantly
underweight – one worse than the other – she weighed only 10kg despite
carrying 5 puppies to full term. Despite that, she was able to give birth
naturally to 5 pups. One of them – the
first born - died after a few days but the others looked to be OK. Not long
after the pups were born we had to rush the mum to the vets as she was suffering
from a massive internal infection which could easily have killed her. After a
week or so, once the pups were moving about, we noticed that the smallest pup
was dragging one of her back legs and couldn’t stand on it. Xrays revealed
that her hip joints were seriously deformed as was her knee on the bad leg. The
vet was of the opinion that poor nutrition had caused this deformation. Some of
the other pups also have weaknesses in their hips, but hopefully this will not
cause them problems once their musculature has strengthened. The prognosis for this
first little girl, Petal,
was not great. The first step was to have the leg removed right up to
the hip at 8 weeks and hope that the other hip could be strengthened as the
muscles developed so she could function adequately as a three-legged dog. She
recovered incredibly well from the operation, but her life was still in the balance as
blood tests showed she was
suffering from a terminal kidney disease normally seen only in very old dogs and the
prognosis was that she had a very short time to live. She also suffered from
occasional seizures which were very distressing both for her and for us. She was
the most loveable pup and full of character. Despite her health issues, she was
the happiest and most playful puppy. We were determined that she would have the
best possible life for the short time that was left to her. We were also
determined that when she was no longer able to enjoy her life,
we would not shrink from letting her go painlessly and surrounded by those she
loved. That time came when she was just 4 months old and Terry and I held her in our arms as the vet
administered the injection and we felt her all-too-short life ebb away - all
because some uncaring, "pet breeding" moron didn't care less about his
dogs - just cared about the money they could make him!

Petal - tragic result of irresponsible breeding!

Click
on her photo to see PETAL'S STORY

At least Petal's mum has pulled through and is now fit, healthy and living
in a wonderful home. The other mum and pups are also now healthy and living with
wonderful families.

Unfortunately,
these two girls and their pups are just the tip of an appalling iceberg. We are
increasingly seeing dogs with health and temperament issues being relinquished
into rescue and as long as the puppy farmers, backyard breeders and most common
of all, the “pet” breeders continue to produce poor quality puppies (and
don’t get me started about the morons who deliberately crossbreed) the current
rescue crisis will have no end.

So,
to all those who are looking to buy a puppy, please, please, please make sure that the breeder
you go to ticks all the boxes mentioned in this article.
If they don’t, you will be supporting a cynical (or stupid) commercial breeder
who doesn’t know or care enough about the dogs he/she breeds.

….and
to all those thinking of breeding – check out the article mentioned above. Are
you 100% sure that you are an ethical, responsible breeder? Can you tick all the
boxes? – if not, no matter what you would like to think, you are either a
puppy farmer, backyard breeder or naïve/stupid/greedy “pet” breeder!

Mick
Brent - Secretary - SHWA(UK)

By supporting SHWA(UK) you
can make a difference in the lives of hundreds of unwanted Siberian Huskies